“A life was a story, and a story was nothing more than a promise that something bad would happen. It was a promise that people would desire and want and ache and burn, but it was not a promise that they would find what they sought.”

“I expected to be happy, but let me tell you something. Anticipating happiness and being happy are two entirely different things. I told myself that all I wanted to do was go to the mall. I wanted to look at the pretty girls, ogle the Victoria's Secret billboards, and hit on girls at the Sam Goody record store. I wanted to sit in the food court and gorge on junk food. I wanted to go to Bath and Body Works, stand in the middle of the store, and breathe. I wanted to stand there with my eyes closed and just smell, man. I wanted to lose myself in the total capitalism and consumerism of it all, the pure greediness, the pure indulgence, the pure American-ness of it all. I never made it that far. I didn't even make it out of the airport in Baltimore with all its Cinnabons, Starbucks, Brooks Brothers, and Brookstones before realizing that after where we'd been, after what we'd seen, home would never be home again.”

“All this is what it means to regret.”

“Oh God, what do we do?""Do?" Levi said, looking oddly triumphant, like his plans for the night had finally materialized, Like he had been hoping for some disaster like this to happen so he didn't have to be bored anymore. Like even a dying girl in his bathtub was better than calling his mother to confirm that his grandfather actually was dead, and that what he had heard on the answering machine wasn't a mere auditory hallucination. "We save her, of course.”

“For the good that I would: I do not, but the evil which I would not, I do.”

“The world he had left was not ready for his return, or rather, he was not ready to return to the world he had left.”

“Worry only about what you control. The rest is war.”

“A life was a story, and a story was nothing more than a promise that something bad would happen. It was a promise that people would desire and want and ache and burn, but it was not a promise that they would find what they sought.”